


The Long Way Home

by ebullience24



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam Young Still Has Powers (Good Omens), Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Anathema Device are Friends (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Crowley Has PTSD (Good Omens), Crowley Has an Anxiety Disorder (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before Falling (Good Omens), Crowley and Anathema Device are Friends (Good Omens), Crowley has Trauma from the Fall (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Crowley's Wings, Crowley's angel form, Crowley's angel name, Crowley's eyes, Crowley-centric (Good Omens), Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Everyone plays charades, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Godparents Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Godfathers, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots, Inspired by Frozen 2, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Summoning, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), The plot has a mind of its own, Wings, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens), airfield gang, and thats okay, at the bookshop, because that's my canon, what can i say, why wasn't that a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-18 15:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebullience24/pseuds/ebullience24
Summary: Crowley starts to hear a voice that nobody else can hear - a call, a summons. Not wanting to worry Aziraphale, Crowley plays it off and pretends that nothing is wrong.Something is happening to Crowley. He can't stop it, nor can he control it. It's ineffable, inevitable. The past catches up with the present, the secrets that have been hidden from him for so long are finally coming to light, and God isn't done with Crowley yet.But can an angel, a witch, a witch finder, the antichrist and his gang of friends help to save Crowley before he is too far gone into the past to remember anything at all?***This is based off of the plot from Frozen 2 so be warned. Look, guys, that movie slaps.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 124





	1. Starlight and Shadow

There is an old bookshop in London’s Soho that, from the outside, looks cozy and packed-full with books. The door is shut tight to keep the wind of winter at bay and the burnished bell that sits atop the door is still and quiet, signaling that no unwanted customers have found their way inside as a reprieve from the cold. From the window inlay of the door, if you were to peek through, you would find a desolate street irradiated by streetlights and the flash of the occasional car or bus headlights. 

In winter, London sleeps. It reverts itself back to the times where Sherlock Holmes and his doctor venture through the streets, where Shakespeare held the curiosity of England in a vice-like grip, where horse-drawn carriages trotted on cobblestones and the streetlights were flickering lanterns that cast great shadows upon the Whitechapel District. London sleeps and anyone who has ever set foot in London during this time of the year is overcome with melancholy and nostalgia and a great sense of hireath.

Although, the exception to this, is found in the old bookshop that we mentioned earlier. The building and the furniture may be old, and though the books may be overcome with melancholy and nostalgia for their authors to once again lovingly glance to their covers, the inside of this old shop is teeming with life and buzzing with excitement. A golden glow snakes its way throughout the building, building the joy and chasing away any feelings that might be anything less than exuberant.

The bookshop is home to an angel, who is currently entertaining a demon, a witch, a computer engineer who isn’t actually that good at his job, the Antichrist and his three friends. They had all saved the world together and both the angel and the demon, who go by the names of Aziraphale and Crowley, agree that that sort of bound them together in some… ineffable way. They had help with the saving the world from a witch hunter and a retired sex worker, though they were off on their hollibobs for a while.

Everyone was piled into a small room round the back of the bookshop. There was an old, comfortable sofa that had been moved (Crowley had insisted on miracling it - Aziraphale had wanted to do things the authentic _human_ way) to make it face the window and two chairs had been dragged in from Someone-only-knew where that sat on either side of the sofa. Crowley, Anathema, Newt and Adam were squished in close on the sofa (Crowley had sprawled himself so that he was taking up most of the room) and the Them had claimed the floor by grabbing the pillows on the sofa and resting on them whilst they lay on the ground belly-down. 

Aziraphale was standing in front of them all, a small scrap of paper clutched in between his hands. It had been Newt’s idea to play a game and the Them had been arguing about which one to play (Adam and Pepper had been in favor of Protector of Books and Destroyer of Books but Aziraphale had turned a shade whiter than his hair and Crowley had had to step in by saying _What about charades?)_ before settling on charades, which Crowley would forever kick himself for not inventing. He would forever kick himself for not inventing party games in general, really - all the annoyance that could come from them, the cheating! It was the perfect storm for wicked, untrusting demonic behavior and Crowley just couldn’t fathom how the humans had thought such a thing up themselves. 

Having tucked the small piece of paper into his pocket, Aziraphale smiled and began the motions of film, book, programme, etc etc. He had taken to the game like a duck to water despite never before playing it and had even won all of the rounds that had a book title for an answer. Crowley had played charades a few times before, every time he had been severely intoxicated, and so the game had been forgotten after everyone had had a go. Aziraphale had put a cap on how much alcohol he was allowed tonight since there were children present, and so Crowley had nothing better to do than watch the game unfold.

“Dinner? Cooking?” Anathema was squinting at Aziraphale, her elbows balanced on her knees and her gaze intent. She had been quick and thorough in every turn she had at acting (Adam had said it was because she had had practice with a lot of witchy spells - no one except him could really see how that had anything to do with the game) and was competitive whenever somebody else was acting. Crowley had always assumed that the witch would be immensely competitive - it was just funnier to see it in demonstration, he supposed. “Making a mess? Newt,” she gently hit him on the shoulder, “we’re doing teams. Pull your weight.”

“We’re not doing teams,” Pepper said from where she sat on the floor, her arms braced on the ground as her upper body twisted to look at everyone sat on the sofa. “Are we? I don’t have a partner.”

“I’ll be your partner, Pepper,” Wensleydale answered. Unlike the rest of the Them, Wensleydale was sat with a high chin and proper posture and had a book open in front of him. Aziraphale had handed it to him as soon as the boy had come through the door, so Crowley assumed that the two of them had talked about it together before. The angel was always gossiping about books to anyone who would listen. “I don’t think I have one either, you know.”

Pepper sighed and fell face first back onto her cushion. “No offense but I don’t want a kid to be my partner when I could have someone older who knows the names of more stuff than we do.”

“I know names of a lot of stuff actually,” Brian had a half-finished plate of chocolate cake in front of him. They had all finished the own pieces at the table but Brian had been taking his sweet time (pun not intended but Crowley was happy that it was there) and the others had been so desperate to start playing games that the boy had had to bring it over. Crowley was raising his eyebrows whenever he got too close to one of the precarious stacks of books that the angel had dotted around, ready at a moments notice to fix something with a miracle before Aziraphale had even noticed that anything was wrong. “Thank you very much.”

“Do you know what The Goldfinch is?” Pepper asked.

Brian frowned, accused. “I’m sure my mother does.”

“My point exactly.” Pepper turned to face Crowley; “Crowley? Can you be on my team?”

“That’s not fair,” Adam said from beside Crowley. “He’s been around since… since before being around was even a _thing_. It’s cheating.”

“If it’s cheating then how come he’s allowed to play in the first place?”

Crowley met Aziraphale’s eye, who was still attempting to act something out. Both him and the angel had been around since being around was even a thing (in the Antichrist’s own words) so it made sense that they would be able to guess everything without a problem, but there were two flaws with this idea: the first and most obvious being that charades tested one’s acting skills so, if the acting was bad, then you can wave goodbye to understanding what the answer is even if it’s your favorite thing in the whole world. And, second of all, Crowley and Aziraphale hadn’t exactly been paying attention the whole time they had been ‘around’. At least half of that time, on Crowley’s behalf, had been spent at parties or getting drunk or hiding underneath one of his plants in his snake form. You tend to miss quite a lot of pop culture when you’re sleeping as a snake. “Uh, I don’t actually think we’re doing teams,” he said. 

“I’d want Dog on my team, I think,” Adam said. He had somehow become the only member of the Them to gain a place on the sofa, though Crowley was certain that it would be stolen whenever it was Adam’s turn to go up front and do some acting next. “He knows a lot of stuff.”

“He’s a dog,” Pepper said. “He doesn’t count.”

“He does,” Adam said pointedly, “because I say he does.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. Crowley, again, looked to Aziraphale as if to say _please step in here before we piss off the Son of Satan and accidentally restart the end of the world._ Crowley wouldn’t put it past Adam to invoke the wrath of Hell just so he could win a game of charades. They had to be careful that he didn’t actually restart the end of the world, and Crowley imagined that it must feel for Adam as if he was walking on egg shells. Aziraphale and Crowley had both promised that they would look into it and perhaps teach him how to hone his powers and leash them as soon as it was safe to do so. 

Heaven and Hell were still keeping a close eye on the angel and the demon after their switching stunt. It was best to keep a low profile for a few months, maybe a year or two. It was a part of the reason why the sofa had been moved instead of miracled and, however much Crowley disagreed, he didn’t want to jeopardize anything right now and so he was happy to refrain from miracles until it was safe. 

He had never been sure that demons could feel happy - properly happy for an extensive period of time without being under the influence of alcohol - and here he was, basking in the golden feeling of it. Relishing in the fact that the feeling didn’t seem to have an end. 

Aziraphale mimed right back to Crowley by pretending to zip his lips shut and saying without words: _I can’t talk, dear, it’s a part of the rules._ Crowley glared. After spending so many years with someone, you become pretty fluent in understanding them even when they weren't saying a word. “Anyway,” Crowley said loudly, having been stuck with the task of keeping the Antichrist and the Them in check, “Aziraphale was on, what? Programme?” 

Aziraphale beamed and pointed to Crowley whilst tapping one finger to his nose. Crowley nodded and settled back into his seat, spreading one arm over the back of the sofa. Adam, almost without knowing he was doing so, instinctively moved closer to the demon, who forced himself not to stiffen and stumble his way through a sentence. 

From the front of the room, Aziraphale started doing another action; he spread one arm out wide and encircled it towards his torso to give the impression that he was holding something, and his other hand was raised above the first one. “Whisking?” Anathema snapped her fingers. “Holding something? The whisking… Whisking whilst holding something? Oh, oh, are you allowed to change it like that?”

“I think we need a ban on how many guesses one person gets to have,” Crowley said wryly and finished off his glass of wine, making sure not to jostle Adam with his movements. “Holding books and baking?” 

“Just how is that a television programme, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, his tone fed-up but his smile bright.

Crowley spluttered and gestured wildly with his now-empty glass. “Oi, you’re not supposed to be talking!” 

“Masterchef?” Brian asked. “My mum likes Masterchef. She says one of the chefs are ‘dishy’, whatever that means. I think it’s a pun. Got to be, when you think about it.”

“Chocky-wocky… The place that does all the chocolate. There’s a cafe down in Brighton that my dad took us all to last year,” Adam guessed with a shrug. 

“Okay but am I the only one who knows that it’s quite clearly The Great British Bake Off?” Newt frowned. 

Aziraphale smiled and nodded. Crowley groaned; “Oh, not that _bloody-_ the angel watches half an hour of it and then he’s in the kitchen for bloody years trying to teach himself how to bake.”

“I can bake,” Aziraphale said. 

“You _can_ bake,” Crowley agreed. “Just not very well.”

“I’m going to give my go to Crowley,” Newt said. “I’ve had two more turns than him now.”

Crowley muttered something to Adam (he wasn’t even sure it was a word, he just had to say something that could be considered a vague apology) and placed his empty glass on the floor as he stood from the sofa, walked over to the front room where the small bowl of paper was (the eight of them had all written on a piece of paper six things - two had to be a movie, two had to be a book, and two had to be a tv programme before folding them up and placing them in a bowl so they could act them out). Aziraphale sat himself down into the spare seat and smiled. Crowley took one scrap of paper from the bowl, read it twice before letting it drop to the ground.

With everyone’s eyes on him, Crowley gestured awkwardly to himself, to the empty space in front of him. He shrugged weakly and ran a hand through his hair. “Um…” Seven pairs of eyes staring at him. _Do something, do something._

“You? Space? Oh! Me Before Yo- Wait, that’s three words.” Anathema sighed. “C’mon, you’re not making this easy.”

“Is it supposed to be easy?” Crowley raised an eye brow before Pepper glared at him and he held his hands up in surrender. She may have only been eleven, but Pepper was frighteningly sharp and Crowley didn’t ever want to get into an argument with her, lest on the basis of rules. “S’rry.”

“Empty…” Aziraphale was frowning. “Uh, floor? Air? Defying Gravity!” 

“That’s a song, actually,” Adam said. “Unless it was made into a movie.”

_Come._

The world faded away - or, that was what it felt like. The conversations became muted, the lights dimmed, and Crowley turned slowly to the window. A car drove past, its silver headlights briefly lighting up the room. But it moved slowly enough to feel as if the world had been doused in treacle. Someone had said come, Crowley was sure of it. It had been plain as day, clear as a bell. Though… nobody seemed to have heard it except for him. 

Gently, Crowley pulled back the curtains to glance out onto an empty Soho street. There was nobody there, though he hadn’t expected there to be. Whoever had said come couldn’t have been outside - the word had been much too clear, too loud for that. “Did anyone just say something?” Crowley let the curtain fall and looked up to the group. 

They had all stopped talking. The voice hadn’t sounded like anyone’s voice from the group, but who else could it have been? There was no other explainable reason behind it; someone in the room had to have said something. Crowley watched them all with the intensity of a cobra sizing up its prey; it was the strangest thing, though. He was looking at all of them, he knew he was, but it didn’t register. He couldn’t pinpoint anyone’s specific expression. 

It felt like he was looking into a crowd of strangers. Their faces blurred together and Crowley felt as if he was stuck inside his head, watching things unfold from a distance.

_Again._

The voice sounded again, but Crowley was sure that nobody’s mouth had moved. Nobody had moved at all. They hadn’t even moved to suggest that they had heard anything out of the ordinary. Crowley shook his head and the world came back into focus as if he had flicked a switch; Aziraphale had stood from the sofa and was standing before Crowley, his face a mask of concern. “Hear what, my dear?”

 _It was just your imagination,_ Crowley told himself. He was rather notorious for having an overactive imagination, wasn’t he? It had helped him stop the end of the world, after all. He had just heard something in his head and zoned out for a little while, that was all. Not wanting to worry anyone, Crowley smiled and flopped back into the seat on the sofa. Everyone was angled to stare at him and Crowley forced himself to act as he normally would.

_You’re fine. Stop overreacting._

It was just that… Everything was on edge right now. Nothing was guaranteed, especially with Heaven and Hell breathing down their necks. Crowley didn’t trust anything out of the usual but was, rightfully so, worried when something like that happened - something like hearing a voice that, apparently, nobody else but him had heard - because it could have been a trick played by Hell, by Heaven, by Dukes of Hell or Archangels or Satan Himself or even God Herself! 

Anything was possible - and anything was bad. 

“No,” Crowley shrugged. “No, nothing. Never mind.” He glanced down to his empty wine glass and huffed, swinging his legs up to stand from the sofa and picking up his glass as he sauntered over to the angel’s extensive wine collection in one fluid motion. “Anyone want a top up?”

A chorus of _I’m alright_ and _no thanks_ came from the small group. More for himself, he supposed as he picked up a vintage bottle and slowly poured it into his glass. As he went to sit back onto the couch, Anathema frowned. “Are you not going to…? It’s still your go, you know.”

_Come._

This time, the voice was louder than if it had been in his head. It was loud enough to feel like someone was standing right behind him and had whispered it directly in his ear. It was loud enough for Crowley to feel the sound resonate in his very bones. It was a voice unlike any voice he had ever heard before, but it was loud and it was close and he could feel the gravelly sound of it fall like rain drops on a car window against the space between his ear and his neck. 

It… couldn’t have been just a figment of his imagination, could it? Unless it was some sort of hallucination. He just didn’t understand how something could be so loud, so close, and he was the only one who heard it. It didn’t make any sense. 

But Crowley, who had been holding a full-to-the-brim glass of wine and had been completely unprepared for the voice to reappear and be so close and so loud, jumped up despite himself and splashed some of his wine onto the jeans. “Fuck,” he hissed and moved as quickly as possible to get away from the sofa in case he accidentally got any on the fabric. 

“What happened?” Aziraphale took the glass from Crowley’s hand and handed him a towel that had been miracled up. Crowley took the towel and stared at it for a moment before he started to rub it against the stain on his jeans, which, thankfully, wasn’t anywhere near his crotch otherwise the whole ordeal would have been made a lot more awkward than what was strictly necessary.

_Come._

Crowley dropped the towel. He hadn’t meant to; his grip hadn’t loosened. It had just… fallen. He stared at that, too, and felt everyone’s stares burning into his skin. _You’re worrying them all over nothing._

“Are you okay?” Newt asked. 

With a snap of his fingers, the wine dried and the stain on his jeans was fixed completely. A part of Crowley was slightly worried about the use of his and Aziraphale’s needless miracles - both creating the towel and drying and fixing the stain from the wine - in case they brought the unwanted attention of Upstairs and Downstairs. If Gabriel were to show up and see Aziraphale entertaining Crowley and the Antichrist… The thought didn’t bear thinking about. They would have to keep a low cover for the next few days, then, just to cover their trail. 

“Fine,” Crowley replied quietly and cleared his throat. “Um, dunno what happened there.” He bent down to pick up the towel and passed it over into Aziraphale’s outstretched hand, ignoring the soothing heat that radiated off of the angel. Everyone was still looking at him, of course they were, and Crowley fought the urge to turn into a snake and hide somewhere where he could collect his thoughts before he had to face everyone. 

He had to get it together. He just wanted so desperately for everything to be okay; he wanted so desperately for everyone to be safe and happy and he wanted to understand what the voice was and why it was here. Why only he could hear it. Maybe if he went to sleep, he could deal with it all in the morning with a clear head.

Aziraphale was folding up the towel into a neat square and between one movement and the next, it disappeared. “It’s not like you to just spill wine like that,” he said with a concerned expression of knitted brows and frowning lips. 

Crowley blew out a breath. “I’m, uh, tired, s’all. Gonna turn in.” Without paying too much attention to the group, Crowley lifted a hand to them and muttered a goodnight before he turned to go up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with him and Aziraphale. He didn’t dare to so much as breathe before the door clicked shut behind him and he rested his head against it, legs shaking as he slid to the ground.

* * *

“Did Crowley seem weird to you? Anathema asked as she handed Aziraphale a glass to take into the kitchen. 

After Crowley had gone upstairs, the rest of the group had played one more round of charades before starting to clean up. The Them were in charge of collecting all the scraps of paper from off of the floor and rearranging the furniture, Anathema and Aziraphale were collecting plates and glasses and Newt was helping wherever help was needed. 

From behind Aziraphale, Newt reached up to the highest shelf on an old bookcase to collect an empty wine bottle. “He seemed like Crowley,” the computer engineer muttered, not unkindly. Crowley had always intimated Newton, Aziraphale had found, for some unknown reason to himself and Anathema but Crowley seemed to enjoy intimidating him whenever he could. It was rather amusing to watch, though Aziraphale would never say such a thing out loud.

Aziraphale took the glass from Newt before he broke it or knocked over the bookcase, or both. “He said he was tired. I’m sure Crowley will be right as rain in the morning.”

Adam looked up from where he was crouched on the floor. “Do demons get tired?”

“Ah, well, that’s where it gets a little complicated,” Aziraphale placed the glasses down onto the nearest side table and fidgeted with the edge of the fabric of his waist coat. “See, we don’t need sleep but our corporations can get accustomed to certain things. Crowley doesn’t need to sleep but because he does it so often, his body gives the illusion of needing sleep. It’s a yes and no question, I suppose.”

Seemingly happy with the answer, Adam nodded thoughtfully and went back to picking up the scrap pieces of paper. “It’s just that… This all seemed to start as soon as he read whatever was written on that piece of paper. For his go of charades.” Anathema explained, gesturing with an armful of plates and glasses. “And, well, something about his aura seemed off. I can’t put my finger on it-”

That got Aziraphale’s attention. He may not have been able to sense auras like Anathema could, but he knew that they were important. “Off how? Do you think Crowley is in danger?”

Anathema sighed. “No, no, nothing as drastic as that. It’s all just a bit weird, I’m sure that’s all. Don’t mind me.”

“What was the movie?” Pepper asked, unrolling a furled-up scrap piece of paper before throwing it back to the ground with a clear look of disdain. “I _hate_ that show. Anyway, you said that it all started when it was his turn to have a go at the game so,” the young girl shrugged, “what was it?”

“Could’ve been a horror movie,” Wensleydale said. “They freak me out sometimes.”

“I don’t think Crowley gets freaked out,” Brian said and started licking his fork clean of any chocolate before he walked into the kitchen area to dispose of his licked-clean plate and cutlery. “He has seen Hell, after all.”

“Dog has seen Hell,” Adam butted in, “and he gets freaked out by squirrels.”

Aziraphale, his curiosity helplessly piqued, walked over to where the Them were inspecting all of the scrap pieces of paper. It was true that Crowley didn’t get freaked out over horror movies (see: _big spooky fan me)_ but his odd behavior had all started when he had read what had been on the paper. He didn’t want to imagine that it could be anything other than that - especially not with auras involved. “Have you found it, Pepper?” He clasped his hands in front of him and fiddled with the gold ring he always wore as he watched Pepper and the rest of the Them.

“Think so,” Pepper unrolled a piece of paper and waved it in the air. “Did anyone have this?”

Gently, Aziraphale plucked the paper from between Pepper’s fingers and saw _Movie: Snake Eyes_ written in black ink. “Snake Eyes? He couldn’t get Snake Eyes?” Worry churned in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach as he thought of the demon upstairs. To solve this mystery, all he would have to do was go to the bedroom and ask Crowley what was wrong but he knew from six thousand years of experience that Crowley had a tendency to claim that everything was fine even if it wasn’t.

He’d done exactly that downstairs earlier, hadn’t he?

They would have to figure it out and then ask Crowley what was wrong - a snake would strike if it even had the briefest suggestion of conflict. Aziraphale folded up the paper into a small square and put it in his pocket. He liked to think that it was all to do with the title being Snake Eyes; Crowley wasn’t comfortable with his eyes and perhaps having to act something like that out in front of a large group of people had been more than he could cope with. 

And Aziraphale might have been able to persuade himself that that was all it was had Crowley not mentioned hearing something, spilled his wine and jumped, and Anathema not mentioned the thing about auras. Something was wrong and Aziraphale couldn’t just believe that it had to do with his game of charades. The angel turned to the witch; “Can you pinpoint for me exactly what was wrong with Crowley’s aura? I want to do some research.”

“Research on what?” Adam interrupted, his tone shrill and scared. 

Anathema’s eyes searched Aziraphale’s face and must have seen the barely hidden worry in his expression - Aziraphale didn’t want to worry anyone with his speculations, but he had never been able to hide his feelings when it came to Crowley. “I’ll try, I-I think I can still sense it.”

Aziraphale smiled thinly, kindly. “Thank you, my dear.”

“Is Crowley alright?” Brian, Adam, Pepper, Wensleydale and Newt were all standing to attention, their tasks of cleaning up long-forgotten as their minds ran with the worst possible thing that could happen to Crowley.

Taking a deep breath, Aziraphale made sure to keep his tone as reassuring as possible (and, considering he was of ethereal nature being an angel and all, that was quite a lot) “Now, I’m sure that Crowley is absolutely fine. Please don’t worry, dears. There isn’t anything that can’t be fixed.”

Everyone except Adam were happy with this answer and went back to doing whatever they had been doing. Adam was still staring at Aziraphale and Anathema, a crease between his brows. Aziraphale looked towards the staircase and gasped; “Ah! I forgot to mention earlier - there are three bedrooms upstairs for you all. I’m afraid that that’s all we could manage without getting the attention of Upstairs so I do apologize, but the beds are the comfiest in all of England! I ensured it. And everything is ready for you when you all choose to retire.”

Anathema and Newt thanked Aziraphale and assured him that it didn’t matter that there were only three rooms, Adam and the Them started bickering about who would be sharing with who and which bedroom they would all pick. Aziraphale nodded. Since Armageddon, the eight of them had all grown incredibly close. It didn’t matter about the… rather extensive age gaps between everyone - they had saved the world together and that wasn’t a bond that could be affected nor influenced by anything. The group had made a habit of going to the bookshop, but both the angel and the demon were still new to having people sleep over - considering they didn’t need sleep themselves. Aziraphale hoped that there would come a day when he could miracle enough bedrooms for everyone, but he would take three bedrooms over having to face Heaven so soon after the end of the world. 

Saying something under his breath about going to check up on Crowley to make sure he was alright, Aziraphale headed to the staircase with a heavy heart and soft eyes.

* * *

The door to their shared bedroom wasn’t uncommon. The lack of light under the door, however, was. 

Aziraphale rested his hand atop of the door handle and watched darkness move from the other side of the door. Crowley was slight sensitive to light, Aziraphale knew, as a consequence of his serpentine nature. But the lights in their bedroom were always on unless they were asleep and, judging from the sounds of movement coming from the other side, Crowley wasn’t asleep just yet. He pushed the door handle down until it clicked and inched the door open before clicking it shut behind him.

He had been right; the room was encased in darkness and dusk, bound by starlight and shadow. The curtains were still open and the silver of the night sky was reflected onto the floor. Crowley was standing with his back to Aziraphale, watching the window, and the gloomy glow made the demon look like a marbleized statue. The burnished copper of his hair was diluted to a deep burgundy and Aziraphale could see his shoulders rising with each unnecessary breath he took. 

Aziraphale could imagine Crowley’s wings arching high over him, stretching to the length of the room and soaking up all the light that was in the room. If his wings were in this plane of existence, Crowley would have looked every inch the fallen angel that he was. The thought made Aziraphale’s breath catch and he shook himself out of it quickly. 

If Crowley had heard him come in, he didn’t acknowledge the angel’s presence. “Something’s wrong,” Aziraphale said quietly. He could sense it now - perhaps not as Anathema could sense auras, but he could feel that something was not quite right. 

Crowley looked up. He was… pale and wan, the way he had looked that day at the airfield. “With you?” 

Crossing the room to where Crowley was stood by the window, Aziraphale gently removed his jacket as the demon shrugged out of it and placed it over the back of a chair. “No,” he led him over to the bed and arranged it so that Crowley was laying down, propped up against a mountain of pillows and Aziraphale was sat next to him, guarding over him like a guardian angel. “With you.” Crowley sighed. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“’S nothing, angel,” Crowley mumbled. 

Aziraphale had known that this would happen, that Crowley would refuse to admit that something was wrong, and he wasn’t going to push it if Crowley didn’t want him to. Sometimes pushing people into admitting things did more harm than good, and Aziraphale was a patient angel. He liked to consider himself to be patient, anyway. “This, ah,” he kept his voice low and quiet and soft, “this thing, Crowley. Will it harm you in anyway? Do you know what it is?”

Crowley ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know and I don’t know. I’m not sure. I-Ngk, angel-” he wrapped his cold hands around Aziraphale’s arms- “if I’m in trouble, I’ll tell you, okay? But… I don’t know. We’re on our side, remember?”

It was a better answer than Aziraphale had been hoping for. He had been expecting Crowley to ice him out completely, for his tongue to become forked or his teeth to become fanged. Aziraphale nodded. “Okay. Good, then.”

Crowley smiled weakly and turned his head into the pillows. “G’night then, angel.” 

He had no plans to sleep - not when he could possibly help figure things out with Anathema or conduct his own research into what was going on with Crowley. Aziraphale was certain that there must be books somewhere downstairs in his shop that could help and he resolved into scouring every inch of his shelves, every title and author he had in his possession, to find something that might help.

But he muttered a goodnight back to the demon and waited a few minutes - a few minutes until he was sure that Crowley was asleep and wouldn’t be woken when Aziraphale left the room - before he left to go start his research.

* * *

Navigating its way through the constellations, the stars, the planets, the clouds and the chimney tops of every house in London, was a voice. It kept Crowley awake despite his best efforts to fall asleep. It called to him like a siren and tempted him like, well, like him. 

Even if he couldn’t hear the voice (and he was honest-to-Go-Sa- _Someone_ shocked that he still could hear it so clearly since he had thrown every pillow he could find over his face), he could sense it. It felt like a current under his skin, alive and thrumming and sending shocks of electricity to his non-beating heart. The sensation was not entirely unlike the night before Christmas or birthdays, when you were so excited that you would have a small adrenaline rush whenever you thought about the thing that you were excited for.

Or Crowley was guessing that that was what it felt like. He hadn’t had much practice in being excited for Christmas or birthdays considering he was a demon and therefore didn’t celebrate either. (The angel had made him celebrate Christmas, it didn’t mean that he had to get excited about it.)

Crowley groaned and pushed down harder on the pillows that covered his face. The voice wasn’t even saying anything! It was just there when it shouldn’t have been. It was like having a migraine, only it was the voice pounding against Crowley’s skull instead of a sharp pain. He didn’t want to worry anyone with it but… He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on, pretending that it was nothing. 

_How much longer you can go on? You’ve been feeling this way since this evening - a few hours at most! Pull yourself together. You don’t want to ruin everyone’s time by making them worry about you, do you? That would just be selfish._

He threw the pillows over the edge of the bed and kicked the sheet that Aziraphale must have laid over him off. Aziraphale’s side of the bed was cold and still made up from that morning, the door open just an inch or so. The angel didn’t sleep much - he must have left to go read something or other. It was a nice system that worked rather well; Crowley indulged in sleeping, Aziraphale indulged in eating. 

Together, they were somewhat of a sucker for human vices.

Standing from the bed, Crowley walked over to the window and all but threw the curtains open. He nearly gasped at what he saw.

Stars. Brighter and closer than they had ever been, brighter even then when before light pollution had rested its thick fog over everything. When he had been in the desert, that first night after the Garden of Eden, when the stars were still new and the earth was still clean and fresh and full of potential, the night sky had never looked quite like this.

This… This was a tapestry of the smoothest, inky silk that had been stitched with diamonds. Diamonds of silver, of gold, of hazy blues and palest pinks and deepest purple. Crowley could open the window, reach a shaking hand out, and tug a star free from the sheath of the sky. He could hold galaxies in his hand - they were so close to him that every breath seemed to make the stars tremble. 

There were a thousand voices inside Crowley’s head. More than a thousand, more than a million. Crowley could feel his knees buckle under the sound of them all, the feeling of them all. He was overwhelmed and so helplessly fixated on the sky that someone could come into the bedroom and touch him and Crowley felt as though would fall to the ground.

 _Return,_ the voice seemed to say. The stars shone brighter with every word - usually such a bright light would pierce Crowley’s eyes, but these… these were warm and iridescent. These were something that was so full of love, that was so familiar that it almost felt Holy. Lights, finally, that didn’t hurt. Lights that he could stare at for hours on end and still be awestruck by. 

_Return to us. Come to us. Your title awaits you,-_


	2. Thrown Out Artwork

  
Back in the 1800s, Aziraphale had walked past a shop window nearly every day on his morning walk to the bakery. In the shop window there had been a thin candle that sat in an engraved bronze saucer. As far as engravings went, they hadn’t been anything special: simple swirls and delicate pinprick patterns. But Aziraphale had purchased the candle and saucer because he had thought it the perfect light to read by when the nights were long and cold (it was - and the smell of fire and wax, of books and hot cocoa, had brought the angel unprecedented happiness on numerous occasions). The candle, now, was sat on his reading desk, lit and burning, both it and its saucer encased in a dusty glass dome as a precaution. 

He was still somewhat cautious of his bookshop being around fire after what had happened with the Not-Quite-End-Of-The-World. 

The candle was bright enough to cast amber light over the book that Aziraphale was currently inspecting as well as the stacks of books he had piled next to him. Despite its age, Aziraphale had miracled it so that the candle’s wax never ran and that it always looked as it had looked when he had bought it. A minor miracle that had been intact for nearly two-hundred years and counting. It was handy for when he wanted to read in bed but didn’t want to wake Crowley, or for nights like this when he was scouring his collection of books and reading their contents with a diligent, unkempt passion. 

Anathema was walking between the disorderly shelves of the bookshop, running her fingers along the aged spines, and collecting the ones that she thought would be relevant before placing them gently down onto the awaiting stack of books for Aziraphale to read. All of the books that the two of them had looked at so far had been old, all of them written in languages that weren’t quite English. The two of them were working in unison: Anathema finding the books and Aziraphale reading them to see if they were of any help. Anathema would read them herself, but the language barrier proved to be more of a bit of a problem.

They had been working for hours and, had Aziraphale not have miracled the candle all those years ago, then the flame would have been burned down to its wick. 

“How’s this one?” Anathema held up a small leather bound book from across the room, the book and a part of her arm the only thing visible from where she was between the bookshelves. She bought her arm back down after a few moments and Aziraphale heard her thumbing through the thick parchment pages. “It’s more symbols than it is words, but there are pictures of wings on the spine. And what I think is a tree but could just as well be a uterus.” 

Aziraphale pushed his reading glasses further up on the bridge of his nose - the things were always slipping off when he looked down to read. He didn’t understand how Crowley could handle them all the time! There was no worse a feeling than feeling them slowly slip from where they should be whilst being engrossed in a book. “I think we’re better off without that one, my dear. Thank you.” 

He could hear Gabriel’s words clear as a bell in his head: _Thank you for my pornography!_ and looked back down to the book splayed out on his desk. He was sure that some of the books had been secreted away between the stacks and the shelves by Crowley as a joke - although where Crowley would find a book that had that sort of thing on its spine, Aziraphale wasn’t sure. He would have to have a word with his demonic partner. 

Anathema muttered something under her breath that sounded like _Probably right_ and Aziraphale heard her push it gently to its place between the other books, its pages and cover whispering against the wood of the shelf. “Have you found anything yet?” 

Looking to the smaller stack of books to his left, the ones he had read earlier in the night and found nothing of importance in, and then to the stack of books to his right, the ones he was going to read as soon as he had finished with the one he was currently inspecting - a prophetic tome from the early 1500s about the importance of believing in angels and demons - and shook his head even though he wasn’t sure if Anathema could see him or not. As fascinating as it was, every prophecy that Aziraphale had read thus far had proved to be untrue. “It all seems rather fictional,” he said sadly. “It isn't _exactly_ relevant.”

In front of him, the curtains weren’t drawn despite the late (or, rather, early) hour. Aziraphale had a clear view of Soho’s streets, although it wasn’t as exciting as it usually was. The streets were desolate and silent, the only noise was the occasional faint sound of tyres pushing down on tarmac from passing cars. Even the sky seemed empty - or perhaps that was just the light pollution that ruined London’s night sky. 

The bookshop was also quiet - a stark contrast from how it had been mere hours before when everyone had been downstairs, drinking merrily and playing charades. The high spirits had left when everyone except Anathema and Aziraphale had retired to their rooms and now all that served as a reminder from the night, all there was to suggest that there were more people in the bookshop than simply just an angel and a witch, were the pillows that had escaped being tidied away and the snores that came from Adam and Brian’s room. 

It was unnerving to have the world be so quiet, especially considering what was going on with Crowley. Although what was going on with Crowley, Aziraphale wasn’t sure. He knew it was something but the specifics… The specifics were unknown. Aziraphale found himself checking on that angelic sense of his that told him there was a demonic presence close by (the sense had become second nature by now. It was more comforting that it should strictly be) just to make sure that Crowley was still upstairs and hadn’t disappeared suddenly.

“Maybe I’m looking at the wrong books,” Anathema was saying. “I mean what’re we going off of here? Demon, sound, spontaneous clumsiness? Those aren’t really things that would be put in an index.” After Aziraphale had left Crowley in their room, he’d gone back down stairs to see Anathema sitting at the table, a notebook in front of her, her fingers drumming against the wood. The two of them had spent a while trying to think of key terms to look up based on Crowley’s actions and that was the method they had resorted to using, though… it didn’t seem to be working. “What else can we look for?” 

She walked around a bookshelf and came to the desk where Aziraphale was sat. Anathema placed a narrow little pocketbook atop the pile to his right and leaned her hip against the corner of the desk. Aziraphale, losing his patience with reading untrue prophecies in Old English, closed the book he had been reading and placed it on the pile to his left before he went to pick up another book. He had already read most, if not all, of the books he had in his collection so re-reading them now was just a matter of extracting information. Their search was moving much faster than Aziraphale had thought, but they hadn’t found anything useful.

“Have you figured out what was wrong with Crowley’s aura?” Aziraphale asked, trying and failing to contain the eagerness in his words. He didn’t want to push the young witch, but having something wrong with an aura was important. If their investigation was to get anywhere, they would need to know exactly what was wrong with Crowley’s aura.

And dawn was rising soon. Aziraphale wanted to find something before dawn broke because he was sure that Crowley would know or suspect that he was up to something, and he didn’t want to worry The Them. The Them were exceptionally close to Crowley, perhaps more so than they were to Aziraphale, and they loved him like a Godfather or an Uncle. Crowley had always been better at dealing with children than Aziraphale was - it was a part of the reason why he had been Warlock’s Nanny and Aziraphale had been the Gardener, despite Crowley having a penchant for plants.

It was just easier to get it all sorted tonight - or, at the very least, have some sort of idea. 

Anathema frowned. “I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about it, but auras aren’t something tangible. It’s hard to discern what’s changed exactly, or if anything has changed at all. Sometimes-Sometimes I can read them like mood rings-” Aziraphale knew what a mood ring was for the simple reason that he had thought them such a novel thing and had purchased one for each finger back when they first became widely known “-and sometimes they’re just like a presence. I can tell when someone has entered a room without even turning around to face the door. But I don’t think anything is wrong with Crowley’s aura, I think something has changed. Or is in the middle of changing, at least.” She pulled a face. “It’s strange.”

“Changing how?” Aziraphale had an idea of what that change could be and the thought didn’t sit well with him. After what happened with Armageddon, and at the Airbase, Hell could be rejecting Crowley’s demon status. Disowning him as one of their own. Aziraphale had never heard of such a thing happening, and he wasn’t sure if it was even something that could be done, but he wouldn’t put Hell past anything. 

It was Hell, after all.

In all his time of living, Aziraphale had only seen Hell once and that was for the briefest moment when he had feigned being Crowley in order to survive the Holy Water Bath. It had been beyond merciless then. And since they believed that Crowley had survived the Holy Water Bath, then that must mean that Hell was angry with him. They hadn’t expected Crowley to survive and yet he had; he had made them all look like fools.

Would they really retaliate? Would they risk that if they knew, or thought, that Crowley was immune to Holy Water? They had said that he had gone native. Maybe… Maybe they had taken this time to think of a worser punishment for Crowley, although what fate for a demon could be worse then Holy Water Aziraphale didn’t want to know. And they didn’t have _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ this time to warn them. 

Well, Aziraphale refused to let them do anything to Crowley. Not after all they’d been through together and certainly not after the two of them had started their newly discovered relationship. Six-thousand years of yearning had built up and up and up until everything came out one night in the bookshop, a few weeks after Armageddon, and both the angel and the demon had forgotten to be scared of vulnerability because they had realized that it was a bigger fear if something happened to one of them without ever knowing how the other truly felt.

This was undiscovered waters and they were taking things step-by-small-step. But it was one of the happiest moments - these few months could be considered moments to them both - of Aziraphale’s life and he wouldn’t let anything ruin that. Not Hell, not Heaven, not the Almighty Herself.

“Well,” Anathema was looking at the unread stack of books on the desk. Her eyebrows knitted together as she stared at the spine of one of them and Aziraphale was about to ask her what was wrong when her face broke into a smile and she exclaimed _“Aha!”_ loud enough to wake the silent streets of Soho. She wrapped her hands around the top three books and lifted them up, bracing the weight of them on her knee. “That one, there. God, these are heavy-”

Without needing more information, Aziraphale took the book that was now on top of the pile and Anathema groaned as she hefted the ones she carried back on top of the stack. She released a breath and turned to Aziraphale, who was staring at the book with the same expression he had worn when Rose Montgomery pulled a gun on him back in the forties or when he had first read _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ and found that prophecy about himself. _How had he not noticed this?_

Anathema gently opened the cover to the title page. “I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on this sooner, but look! It’s a fortune book. I remember my Grandmother saying something about them when I was younger. They’re… I can’t remember what it is exactly, but they’re different from books of prophecy.”

Aziraphale ran his hand over the title page. It was old but in better condition than most of his books. The pages weren’t yellow or folded, the ink was as black and crisp as how it must’ve looked new. “Fortune books are more concentrated than books of prophecy. They can tell the fortune of a singular person rather than a prophecy of the world-” he trailed off. 

He had read about fortune books before but only in passing. He had never learned about them in-depth, had never held one in his hands although… Although he must’ve held one in his hands before otherwise how would he have it in his bookshop? How hadn’t he noticed it? It didn’t make any sense. “I have to admit, I’m not very familiar with these types of books.”  
  
Anathema pushed herself off of the desk. “I’ve heard of them but I grew up in a family of witches. We didn’t know much about them, either. Just that… Well, it makes sense that fortune books are rarer than prophecy books, doesn’t it? Because fortune books can only be for a singular person, whereas prophecies encompass everything.”

Aziraphale turned over the title page. He knew where he had gotten most of his book collection from. The stories behind the stories. How first and signed editions made their way to his cozy little bookshop, how personal messages from Oscar Wilde made their way into the corners of all of Aziraphale’s Oscar Wilde books. Every book he had collected meant something to him - they were mementos from his time on earth. Little things he had that made him feel more human than anything else ever could. 

But he didn’t remember how this book - this fortune book - had come into his possession. He couldn’t remember it at all. 

The book was in practically perfect condition. The cover was a brilliant gold and green. Although… The title page- 

Aziraphale turned back to the title page, expecting to see the title of the book and the author of the book and the publishing house. 

Nothing. There was a small, black symbol of wings and something else at the bottom of the page. But no author, no title, no publishing house. 

Perhaps that’s how all fortune books work, Aziraphale told himself. As he had said, he wasn’t very accustomed to them. 

“Odd,” he said under his breath and turned back to the page he had been on. 

“I’ve never seen a fortune book before,” Anathema was watching by Aziraphale’s side. “I’ve seen fortune tellers before but I was alive in the 90s so obviously. They were on nearly every street.”

“Oh, fortune telling is an older craft than that, I should think. It dates back thousands of years,” Aziraphale said the words quietly as if he hadn’t even meant to say them. The words had wanted to be spoken, but Aziraphale hadn’t meant to say anything. Having spent so much time around authors, Aziraphale knew that words had no keeper and even the most articulate of people couldn’t leash them. “What was it your Grandmother said?”

Anathema was quiet for a moment. The silence held its breath; Aziraphale was holding one page of the book so he could read the page beneath it, although it felt like the page would stay standing upwards whether he removed his hand or not. The spine creaked like an old door. “Oh, something about why Agnes would leave us a prophecy book instead of a fortune book. She thought the book was about our family and not just the world in general.”

The book, strangely enough, was written in English. Modern day English. It could have been published that morning with its choice of wording. But Aziraphale couldn’t make sense of the words. They were there, their shapes the same shapes of the shapes that made up the modern English lexicon, and the pages were paragraphed and the paragraphs were sentenced and punctuated. But the letters were jumbled and the words weren’t words at all, they were-

Anagrams. The whole book was an anagram, ready and waiting to become whatever it was that its owner needed. How had this book escaped Aziraphale’s attention for so long? How had it sat, unused and unread and forgotten, on his shelf for so many centuries? Where was its author? Its title? 

Who publishes a book without giving it a title? Who writes a book without adding their name to the title page?

Who publishes a book without a publishing house?

“Ineffable,” Aziraphale whispered under his breath and turned yet another page. 

Primarily, Aziraphale dealt with prophecy books. They were his specialty. He sold rare books in general and anyone who has ever walked past his bookshop knows him as an Old and Rare Book Dealer, but most of the books in his vast collection were books of prophecy. He knew most authors of those books, most works. He could remember all of those prophecies he had read (the ones that had proved to be true) and recall them at the drop of a hat. He could name any edition and he probably had most editions known to man. 

The point was: Aziraphale knew prophecy books perhaps better than he knew the back of his hand. But fortune books? They were the same bones in a completely different skin, and Aziraphale had little idea how they worked. 

Finding a book that might be able to offer some information on what was happening with Crowley was supposed to be an answer. Or, at the very least, a guide of some sort. Aziraphale wasn’t even sure if they’d found the right book, if the right book even existed. If the fortune book sitting in front of him would be of any help, if it was even a proper fortune book. Whatever that may be.

They were going off of a whim. A slight chance that the book might be able to help. Help how? 

The book was a fortune book. Fortune books could read the fortune of a single person. But how did it do that? How could it turn from a book of anagrams to a book of fortune for a single person - for Crowley? Did the person who wrote the book already know the fortunes of Crowley? Was it magic or witchcraft or miracles? Could the book be reused? 

How did it work? And how could it help? And how had a fortune book been in Aziraphale’s collection for all these years without him ever knowing about it?

Aziraphale was hoping that they could figure out how the book worked and that the book would become some sort of fated diary about Crowley. That it would explain everything. But how long that would take, Aziraphale was unsure. If it would work or if fortune books were a type of myth, he was also unsure. And reading a fated diary about Crowley felt… It felt like an invasion. It felt too personal. 

So perhaps Aziraphale would have to ask Crowley if it was okay for them to do such a thing, but how would that work out? The whole idea of finding a book that might be able to offer up an explanation was for the sole purpose of finding out what was happening so they could tell Crowley because the demon wasn’t the type of person who would offer up information about themselves unprompted. 

And when Aziraphale had spoken to him, Crowley hadn’t seemed to know any more than Aziraphale did himself. Maybe he knew more than he was letting on. Crowley would always just shrug things off because he didn’t want to worry. He had said to Aziraphale that if he was in trouble, he would say something. 

Aziraphale sighed. There were so many questions. Perhaps he was making things harder then they needed to be. He didn’t want to get involved with fortune books or secret fates or Hell’s evil retaliations when the end of the world had only been a few months ago. He wanted a cup of tea. 

He closed the book. He would have to do more research, then. What a fortune book was, how it worked. How to read one and how to discover the author of such a thing. That last one wasn’t a fundamental thing he would have to do in order to help Crowley, but Aziraphale was curious. What kind of book had no visible title nor author and could escape his attention for so long?

The tasks set before him - understanding the book, figuring out what the book meant and how it related to Crowley, what was going on with his demonic partner - rolled out to an unfathomable expanse. Aziraphale didn’t even want to think about what their respective sides would make of it. Heaven and Hell had been quiet so far, but that wasn’t guaranteed. If they had reason to believe that Crowley or Aziraphale were up to something they shouldn’t be up to, then they would surely take action. 

But he would figure it all out, without either Heaven or Hell taking notice, and he would help Crowley with… with whatever was going on. He just had to _understand_ first. 

From beside him, Anathema stretched her arms above her head. It was nearing 4AM and she had helped him all night without a break. Aziraphale smiled softly. “You can go to bed if you like, my dear.”

Anathema shook her head. “We need to sort this out first. Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

Aziraphale’s smile widened and he stood from his chair to gently guide the witch over to the bottom of the staircase, his warm hands wrapped around her cold forearms. “Yes, though I’m sure you’ll be more than fine after a rest. I can manage everything else, don’t worry about that.”

She frowned and stared at him with slightly bloodshot eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. You go up to bed and I’ll sort out the mess down here.”

Her frown lessened and she kissed him on the cheek, muttering a good night, and Aziraphale called up to say what a help she had been, to thank her. After he heard the click of her and Newton’s bedroom door close, Aziraphale turned back to his desk and the piles of books that had grown on it and-

His gaze caught on something. Something outside the window, just high enough to be out of his direct eye line. It had been a flash of something. A shine of something, like the reflection of metal on sunlight. Aziraphale titled his head and clasped his hands together in front of him as he walked over to the window, watching out for the pillow and books that were littered across the floor. He bent down to better see the sky through the window, his interest piqued.

Hadn’t he said earlier how desolate the streets were? How quiet? It was strange for something to suddenly shine in from the street.

He saw the sky.

And as if the window had caught fire, Aziraphale jumped back with a gasp. And at the exact same time he heard a crash come from upstairs. 

* * *

Crowley had an estranged relationship with the stars.

Whenever he looked at them for too long, he could feel his heart beat in the back of his throat, serving as a warning for something or other. When he was tired or bored or angry or upset, whenever he felt something too strongly, he could see them on the back of his eyelids whenever he closed his eyes (one of the perks of taking his serpent form was not having that problem; it was hard to see things on the backs of your eyelids if you didn’t have eyelids to begin with). He had seen the stars when he had asked Aziraphale for Holy Water, when he had thought about running to Alpha Centauri, when he had walked into the church to save the angel, when Aziraphale had said they were on opposite sides, when he had been driving the burning Bentley down to the Airbase.

The stars followed him his whole life. They only tended to show up during the bad times, though. 

His more complex feelings of them - his more personal feelings of them - had all been forgotten with his Fall. He could recall some things, but it resulted in a pressure headache a strong, unwavering feeling of shame.

Despite his estranged relationship with the stars, Crowley was familiar with them. He knew what they looked like, or what they were supposed to look like. He knew constellations and planets, he knew galaxies and he could recognize when a star had been born and when it had died. The night sky was a picture he could paint without his eyes, without his hands, without paint nor brushes. 

He knew what it was supposed to look like. He knew what it looked like. He had seen the night sky every day for six-thousand years, damnit, he knew what the night sky looked like. And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet. 

And yet it didn’t the way it was supposed to look.

The stars came in clusters. The stars were bright, fat with wishes and worn with navigation. They were in groups of five to fifty. The gaps of indigo were few and far between. Only slithers of blackness remained, fractures of clouds. The sky was indigo and purple and deep blue. It looked like the Northern Lights had been frozen into a still image and that image had been cast across the sky. Greens bled into gold and gold into purple and purple into indigo and blue and black. 

But it wasn’t the dull, dusty, foggy black of London’s night sky. It was a black that was dark enough to absorb all the light that surrounded it. It was striking and hypnotizing. These small spaces of skies… They were galaxies in themselves. 

There were so many stars. Crowley had never seen so many in his lifetime. They were so bright. They were so close. The world was stitched and sewn together through stars, the fabric of the universe had a seam made of constellations. They looked like flicks of paint - silver and blue and pink and purple and gold. 

A star couldn’t fall in this sky. It would be caught on the edges of another star, joining another cluster. There was no empty space in this sky. Any patch of sky that wasn’t full of stars was beautiful in its own right - the sky just simply wasn’t the sky it had always been. It was a tapestry of thrown out artwork. 

Everything had its place. The sky was full, but everything had its place and everything was in its place. If the gravel on a path were stars and the path was the sky, there still wouldn’t be enough stars to show the amount in the sky right now. Billions, just above the bookshop. 

Crowley exhaled shortly, curtly. His body’s vain attempt to kick start his lungs into working. He hadn’t breathed since he had first looked to the sky. It seemed to steal all of his breaths, each one it took caused the stars to pulse brighter. Made them separate into two stars and then three and then four- 

In the back of his mind, Crowley wondered if everyone could see the sky. Could see how it had changed. What it looked like. If people were awestruck like he was, if they were worried. If they were taking pictures of if they were simply staring in disbelief like he was. If the sky looked like this in everywhere or just in London. 

What if he was the only one who was able to see it? Out of Aziraphale, Newt and Anathema, and The Them, he had been the only one who had heard that… That whatever that thing was. Perhaps the sky looking like this wasn’t related to the thing he had heard downstairs. Perhaps he was dreaming. 

Perhaps he had had a bit more to drink than he had previously thought. 

But… If the sky was visible like this to everyone, then it would cause mass hysteria. Surely. There would be news segments and conspiracy theories (one of Crowley’s finer inventions, if he did say so himself. Although he hadn’t expected for himself to become so annoyed with wild, outlandish conspiracy theories) and panic attacks across the globe. Maybe the airports would block flights. Maybe the government would say it was some sort of chemical defect. 

And, although he didn’t know for sure, Crowley had an idea that the sky was like that because of him. It wasn’t a coincidence, it couldn’t be. First he heard someone speaking to him that nobody else could, then he sees the stars like they are, then they say… What did they say? Something about a title. Crowley had zoned out after his mind had comprehended the fact that the stars seemed to be more alive than he himself had ever felt. 

He was the reason the stars, the sky, looked like that. And he couldn’t be the cause of the panic that it would cause.

If he were the reason for the sky to be in such a state, then he could be the reason that it reverted back to its normal state. 

With hands that shook too much for his liking Crowley undid the latch on the window and flung it open. London’s cold, winter air hit his face like he had ran into a wall of ice. He took a deep breath. The stars wavered in response. _Return to us. Come to us. Your title awaits you-_

He looked to the stars. They shook with every breath he took, with every wind blow that hit them. He looked to the stars. The stars looked back. _Return to us. Come to us. Your title awaits you-_

“Stop.”

Crowley spoke the word with as much force as he could muster, with as much power as he had. He said it loudly, confidently. It was a command and a demand and a request and an order. 

As soon as he said it, Crowley crouched to the ground and shut his eyes and placed his hands over his ears. 

Like frozen icicles dropping from a roof, the stars collapsed to the ground with the sound of shattering glass. Thousands upon thousands of shattering stars, slipping from their sheath of sky to the harsh floor below. Falling like he did all those centuries ago. Shattering glass, ice breaking, wind chimes in a hurricane. 

It went on for hours, for seconds. For days and for minutes. For six-thousand years and the time before, back when before time was called time. 

Crowley stayed crouched on the floor, his eyes shut, until he was sure that the stars had finished their descent and slowly, slowly, he opened his eyes and rose to his full sight with weak and fragile legs. His bones felt like they were made of glass. He looked to the sky with bated breath.

And sighed in relief. 

The sky was back to normal. Every star that should be there was there, shining at the right intensity. Every galaxy that should be visible, every planet, was there. The moon was a yellowing shine, not the iridescent white it had been. The fog and the light pollution was back, the sky returning to its dim black. London’s sky, resumed to normality. 

He turned his gaze down to the ground, expecting to see a litter of shards of stars, of broken pieces and sharp edges of all the things that the sky had no room to hold. Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The ground looked normal. The stars had fallen and disappeared. All because he had told them to stop. All because he, Anthony J Crowley, Serpent of Eden, had demanded that the sky do something.

And the sky had listened.

Huh. It hadn’t listened to him in a while. 

What was it that they had said? _Return to us. Come to us. Your title awaits you-_

The voice had cut off at that point. _Your title awaits you-_

What title?

The wind blew again, causing the curtains to rustle. Crowley closed the window and secured the latch shut. His hands were still shaking. 

It had worked. That was the part that he had trouble believing. Strange voices talking to him, the sky looking like he was viewing it from the inside of the star, the stars talking to him… Crowley could brush all of that off. He could ignore that, for the most part. What he couldn’t ignore was how he had told the sky, the stars, to do something.

And they had listened. They had done the thing that he had asked of them.

Making the stars fall hadn’t even been hard. It had been a word. One work spoken. That was all it had took for them to fall.

_Was that how easy it had been for Her to make you Fall?_

Crowley shut off the thought as soon as he thought it. _That isn’t relevant_.

_Return to us. Come to us. Your title awaits you-_

That, however, _was_ relevant. What title? Return… Return where? 

He was about to call down to make sure that everyone was alright - why, he wasn’t sure. Something didn’t feel right. Crowley turned to the closed door of the bedroom and-

Promptly collapsed to the ground.

  
  


* * *

The Ineffable Plan is just that: it is too great to be described by words, too extreme to be widely known. The Plan is not to be questioned, not to be uttered of. The Ineffable Plan is God’s words and they are to be respected and they are not, under any circumstances, to be questioned. 

The Ineffable Plan is diverse. It goes off on many tangents. It covers the whole of the world and everyone in it. It includes Heaven and it includes Hell. The Plan is segmented into different pathways, different choices, but the end result is always a part of the Plan no matter what path or choice is decided. The end result is always changing, always flickering into a different state, but it is always decided by God. 

Only She calls the end result, however different that may be from Her original Plan. 

And on that sleepy night in downtown Soho, in that cozy bookshop, where the stars rised and where the stars fell with the voice of their creator, another tangent of Her Ineffable Plan is set in motion.

“This test has been in practice for Millennia,” She says, her being diluted in a presence rather than a body. “It has been rehearsed and scheduled. Can I trust that you are prepared?”

“I am,” the person She is speaking to says without an ounce of fear or nervousness. “I am prepared in every aspect of the word, My Lord.”

The person can feel the scrutiny of Her presence. They feel raw and naked, their thoughts on display like an exhibit for Her perusal. They square their shoulders and raise their chin, taking the stance of heroes and villains and the Gods from myths and legends. “I can only hope so,” She says, her voice a sweet caress by the person’s ear. 

She vanishes and not a trace of Her presence is left. The person is pulled to the ground, the essence of Her leaving their body and their spirit like a door slammed shut. They are left cold and gasping, though their mind and heart is strong and sturdy and clear. 

The person has been entrusted for this test by God Herself. They will not fail Her. 

They were confident of that, because they had been practicing and preparing for Millennia, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really not a fan of this chapter but if I have to revise it again, I will go mad so just... Just have at it
> 
> First of all, I'm so sorry for not updating in a while! The holiday season was busier than I thought and these chapters take a really long time to write. I also rewrote this 5 times because I loathed it. ANYWAY
> 
> Thank you so, so much for your support! Thank you for reading, for kudos-ing, for bookmarking in and commenting. I really, really hope you like this chapter. Let me know what you think because comments to me are crepes to Aziraphale and Bentleys to Crowley :D
> 
> Love you all,  
> Xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As I said in the summary, this fic is inspired by Frozen 2 so please beware for spoilers of that. I can't see it being spoiler-y but I thought it best to put a warning on just in case :D  
> This fic is just something fun to keep me occupied over the holidays - I can't see it being any longer than 10 chapters or so. I have a rough outline of what I want to happen but nothing is set in stone yet so I really can't say. As always, please leave a comment because I love comments and they make me smile for... six thousand years after reading them. Also, I have another Good Omens fic that is an ongoing historical AU set in LA during the 50s/60s that features a rockstar Crowley and fan Aziraphale so please check that out if it suits your fancy :D
> 
> I hope you liked this! I worked really hard on it (it's harder to keep track of 8 characters than I thought it would be) and hope that it computes to the reader what it did to me. I had so much fun writing this and hope you have just as much fun reading it! <3
> 
> Love you all,  
> Xoxo


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